NIGHT WORKERS

Exit the tram at the last stop and begin the slow walk home, up the hill, the cold fading. Cross the main road and everything becomes quiet, along the side street by the park. The walled off night seeps into the horizon.

Further on a group of nightworkers go silently about their labour. A soundless construction-scape brought to attention only by their shadowy figures, dark against the blue grey air.

A figure in a window nearby sits watching, casually sleepless. The houselights are off and a streetlamp reflects on their face. Fading and reappearing through these dappled pools, the nightworkers’ landscape soaks inside.

The watcher’s window screens the scene; the air outside must sit brighter for the image to shine through, flick a switch and the image goes black. Out in the chill the nightworkers are oblivious, they flicker and fade with waxing light, emerging again as punctuations in the dark.

Left out of a collective hibernation, the watcher and the workers are both still and moving. Without schedule until dawn, when light pierces through their images and they become without shadow, seeping into the day.